Body Control, Mental Fortress, & Unstoppable = broken?

[ddillon]

Are Body Control, Mental Fortress, and Unstoppable broken?  Or is the +10 bonus too small to be effective?

 

I selected both Mental Fortress and Body Control for all party members, but my characters *never* seem to save against charmed, confused, frightened, paralyzed, etc effects.

 

Note: These are not min-maxed or otherwise abnormal characters.  Most are Obsidian-made companions, and none of my custom companions has a score under 10 in any attribute, so there shouldn't be any large penalties offsetting the bonus from these talents.

Edited April 17, 2015 by ddillon

[Raz415]

I have been shafted by these talents as well in the beginning. These types of attacks have to miss to be completely avoided, even a graze will affect your characters (but for 50% less duration). A plus 10 to these defenses isn't much, and from my experience even my tanks which are custom built for resisting stuff, with +10/15 will items and defense buffs from the priest and items will almost always get at least grazes by Confuse and Charm. It's a balance issue imo. 

 

Paralyze doesn't hit as often on my tanks, which is nice. Body control was ok on the tanks, but not on other party members imo.

Edited April 17, 2015 by Raz415

[El Zoido]

I think it's a result of the miss/graze/hit/crit system. Per default, most attacks/spells will do something, even when the effect/duration might be reduced.

Depending on the difference between your guys defence and the attackers accuracy, +10 defense can well mean a couple of more misses, but it can also simply result in more grazes, which will still affect your chars.

The system in itself has some advantages (like e.g. supposedly trained fighters being able to hit a barn door even on low levels), but in order for buffs to be noticeable, they need to be stronger, imo. To achieve any serious and noticeable effect in your example, I'd say that +25 are necessary at least.

[ddillon]

Thanks for the info. I'll pay more attention to whether attacks that inflict the effects in question are grazing or hitting, but...

 

I'd say that +25 are necessary at least.

I agree. They feel like trap choices right now.

Edited April 18, 2015 by ddillon

[thelee]

If you think in terms of D&D scale, a +10 bonus is roughly equivalent to a +2 bonus on a d20. I feel like +2 is actually what is used in D&D for feats/items/tricks that boost saves (+2 being the standard number recommended by the Dungeon Master's guide for adjustments), and you'd never see anything like a +5 (which is roughly +25).

 

EDIT: also, even with the graze system, a +10 bonus translates to that much more misses 1-for-1. Just because there are grazes doesn't mean that the bonus is less effective. The only time where +10 doesn't translate into that many more misses is when the enemy accuracy was so high that misses were pushed completely off the hit table, and in that case, a +10 bonus both reduces the crit rate of the enemy and pushes grazes/misses back onto the hit table.

 

Basically, what I'm saying is that it's not the hit/miss/graze system's fault the bonus is not completely obvious. The bonus is intended to be a situational adjustment to your defense that helps a bit in the long run, not an immunity, much like the +2 save feats in D&D.

Edited April 18, 2015 by thelee

[thelee]

I have been shafted by these talents as well in the beginning. These types of attacks have to miss to be completely avoided, even a graze will affect your characters (but for 50% less duration). A plus 10 to these defenses isn't much, and from my experience even my tanks which are custom built for resisting stuff, with +10/15 will items and defense buffs from the priest and items will almost always get at least grazes by Confuse and Charm. It's a balance issue imo. 

 

Paralyze doesn't hit as often on my tanks, which is nice. Body control was ok on the tanks, but not on other party members imo.

 

By the way, the reason why your experience is like this is because these types of talents are most effective on characters who already have high defense. Basically, defense has increasing returns (i.e. going from 0-10 defense is not nearly as good as going from 140-150). I guess in this sense these are "trap" talents because you could be picking them up sub-optimally.

 

And anyway, a graze is still way better than a full hit, especially when it comes to something like paralyze or domination.

[ddillon]

Consider the opportunity cost, the alternatives sacrificed to select these talents.

 

These three seem to be more-or-less trap choices for most characters imo.

 

But I'll watch the combat log for a while, try to get a better feel for exactly what benefit these talents are providing.

Edited April 18, 2015 by ddillon

[Heijoushin]

Yeah... I hated getting charmed, so I tried mental fortress... didn't seem to help much. 

[Raz415]

Well, my Wizard has 93 base will, plus 10 from Kana's chant (which begins at the beginning of combat), plus Mental Fortress, and Fampyrs charm him with a 100% success rate every fight. 

 

I honestly think that Fampyrs are broken though. Ignoring the fact that they use Charm ANIMAL on my Wizard (I was just drunk when I called him that!), the spell has 10.000m range. They detected my rogue planting a trap waaaaay ahead of the rest of the group (they were waiting at a chokepoint), and the first thing the Fampyr does is cast charm on my Wizard.

[the streaker]

 

I have been shafted by these talents as well in the beginning. These types of attacks have to miss to be completely avoided, even a graze will affect your characters (but for 50% less duration). A plus 10 to these defenses isn't much, and from my experience even my tanks which are custom built for resisting stuff, with +10/15 will items and defense buffs from the priest and items will almost always get at least grazes by Confuse and Charm. It's a balance issue imo. 

 

Paralyze doesn't hit as often on my tanks, which is nice. Body control was ok on the tanks, but not on other party members imo.

 

By the way, the reason why your experience is like this is because these types of talents are most effective on characters who already have high defense. Basically, defense has increasing returns (i.e. going from 0-10 defense is not nearly as good as going from 140-150). I guess in this sense these are "trap" talents because you could be picking them up sub-optimally.

 

And anyway, a graze is still way better than a full hit, especially when it comes to something like paralyze or domination.

 

 

Why do you say that? The accuracy roll is 1-100, so a +10 defense shifts everything up by 10%. You have to roll 10 less to miss, 10 less to hit, 10 less to crit. Everything on the scale shifts up. I see it as linear benefit, unless your defense is either incredibly low as to always get hit, or incredibly high as to aways miss. Most challenging fights, you'll be somewhere in the middle.

[thelee]

 

 

I have been shafted by these talents as well in the beginning. These types of attacks have to miss to be completely avoided, even a graze will affect your characters (but for 50% less duration). A plus 10 to these defenses isn't much, and from my experience even my tanks which are custom built for resisting stuff, with +10/15 will items and defense buffs from the priest and items will almost always get at least grazes by Confuse and Charm. It's a balance issue imo. 

 

Paralyze doesn't hit as often on my tanks, which is nice. Body control was ok on the tanks, but not on other party members imo.

 

By the way, the reason why your experience is like this is because these types of talents are most effective on characters who already have high defense. Basically, defense has increasing returns (i.e. going from 0-10 defense is not nearly as good as going from 140-150). I guess in this sense these are "trap" talents because you could be picking them up sub-optimally.

 

And anyway, a graze is still way better than a full hit, especially when it comes to something like paralyze or domination.

 

 

Why do you say that? The accuracy roll is 1-100, so a +10 defense shifts everything up by 10%. You have to roll 10 less to miss, 10 less to hit, 10 less to crit. Everything on the scale shifts up. I see it as linear benefit, unless your defense is either incredibly low as to always get hit, or incredibly high as to aways miss. Most challenging fights, you'll be somewhere in the middle.

 

 

Look at this way. Let's say your defense is such that there is a 50% chance to miss. If you get a +25 defense bonus, you halved the amount of damage/attacks that are going to hit you (50% of the attacks that will hit you versus 25%). By contrast, if you have a defense such that there is a 90% chance to miss, then you only need an additional +5 more defense to halve the amount of damage/attacks that are going to hit you (10% of the attacks that will hit you versus 5%). At 98% chance to miss, you only need +1 more defense, etc.

 

Just because the numbers in question are purely additive does not mean that the effect is therefore linear. Quite the contrary, in fact.

 

EDIT: my numbers might look insanely hypothetical, but in Path of the Damned some enemies have huge defenses. Against an enemy with e.g. 120 deflection, getting that deflection debuffed down by the first 20 is more important than the next 20. (Imagine a character with 40 accuracy and examine why). That's not to say that more isn't always better, it's just that non-linear scaling means that each point has a different additive value.

Edited April 18, 2015 by thelee

[the streaker]

 

 

 

I have been shafted by these talents as well in the beginning. These types of attacks have to miss to be completely avoided, even a graze will affect your characters (but for 50% less duration). A plus 10 to these defenses isn't much, and from my experience even my tanks which are custom built for resisting stuff, with +10/15 will items and defense buffs from the priest and items will almost always get at least grazes by Confuse and Charm. It's a balance issue imo. 

 

Paralyze doesn't hit as often on my tanks, which is nice. Body control was ok on the tanks, but not on other party members imo.

 

By the way, the reason why your experience is like this is because these types of talents are most effective on characters who already have high defense. Basically, defense has increasing returns (i.e. going from 0-10 defense is not nearly as good as going from 140-150). I guess in this sense these are "trap" talents because you could be picking them up sub-optimally.

 

And anyway, a graze is still way better than a full hit, especially when it comes to something like paralyze or domination.

 

 

Why do you say that? The accuracy roll is 1-100, so a +10 defense shifts everything up by 10%. You have to roll 10 less to miss, 10 less to hit, 10 less to crit. Everything on the scale shifts up. I see it as linear benefit, unless your defense is either incredibly low as to always get hit, or incredibly high as to aways miss. Most challenging fights, you'll be somewhere in the middle.

 

 

Look at this way. Let's say your defense is such that there is a 50% chance to miss. If you get a +25 defense bonus, you halved the amount of damage/attacks that are going to hit you (50% of the attacks that will hit you versus 25%). By contrast, if you have a defense such that there is a 90% chance to miss, then you only need an additional +5 more defense to halve the amount of damage/attacks that are going to hit you (10% of the attacks that will hit you versus 5%). At 98% chance to miss, you only need +1 more defense, etc.

 

Just because the numbers in question are purely additive does not mean that the effect is therefore linear. Quite the contrary, in fact.

 

EDIT: my numbers might look insanely hypothetical, but in Path of the Damned some enemies have huge defenses. Against an enemy with e.g. 120 deflection, getting that deflection debuffed down by the first 20 is more important than the next 20. (Imagine a character with 40 accuracy and examine why). That's not to say that more isn't always better, it's just that non-linear scaling means that each point has a different additive value.

 

 

Your numbers aren't wrong, but that's a convoluted way of interpreting them. Yes, at 90% chance to miss, a 5 defense bonus halves your chance to get hit, but that statistic isn't very meaningful. A 5 defense bonus shifts the accuracy rolls up by 5 points, wherever it's added.

 

If you compare it to damage, an increase of 10 damage per hit to a base of 10 damage is 100% increase, whereas an increase of 10 damage to a base of 20 damage is 50% increase. That doesn't make the 10 damage per hit any less valuable when added to the higher base damage weapon (assuming equal attack speeds), even though judging purely based on percentages would suggest that it's half as valuable. 10 more damage per hit is 10 more damage per hit, wherever it's added.

[James Harrison]

You could turn them into talents that have a % chance to turn a hit into a graze, and a graze into a miss. That way they would do things even on low defence characters.

[Emptiness]

You could turn them into talents that have a % chance to turn a hit into a graze, and a graze into a miss. That way they would do things even on low defence characters.

 

I would say combine that with the current +10 defense, and maybe also add an automatic -25% duration.

[thelee]

 

 

 

 

I have been shafted by these talents as well in the beginning. These types of attacks have to miss to be completely avoided, even a graze will affect your characters (but for 50% less duration). A plus 10 to these defenses isn't much, and from my experience even my tanks which are custom built for resisting stuff, with +10/15 will items and defense buffs from the priest and items will almost always get at least grazes by Confuse and Charm. It's a balance issue imo. 

 

Paralyze doesn't hit as often on my tanks, which is nice. Body control was ok on the tanks, but not on other party members imo.

 

By the way, the reason why your experience is like this is because these types of talents are most effective on characters who already have high defense. Basically, defense has increasing returns (i.e. going from 0-10 defense is not nearly as good as going from 140-150). I guess in this sense these are "trap" talents because you could be picking them up sub-optimally.

 

And anyway, a graze is still way better than a full hit, especially when it comes to something like paralyze or domination.

 

 

Why do you say that? The accuracy roll is 1-100, so a +10 defense shifts everything up by 10%. You have to roll 10 less to miss, 10 less to hit, 10 less to crit. Everything on the scale shifts up. I see it as linear benefit, unless your defense is either incredibly low as to always get hit, or incredibly high as to aways miss. Most challenging fights, you'll be somewhere in the middle.

 

 

Look at this way. Let's say your defense is such that there is a 50% chance to miss. If you get a +25 defense bonus, you halved the amount of damage/attacks that are going to hit you (50% of the attacks that will hit you versus 25%). By contrast, if you have a defense such that there is a 90% chance to miss, then you only need an additional +5 more defense to halve the amount of damage/attacks that are going to hit you (10% of the attacks that will hit you versus 5%). At 98% chance to miss, you only need +1 more defense, etc.

 

Just because the numbers in question are purely additive does not mean that the effect is therefore linear. Quite the contrary, in fact.

 

EDIT: my numbers might look insanely hypothetical, but in Path of the Damned some enemies have huge defenses. Against an enemy with e.g. 120 deflection, getting that deflection debuffed down by the first 20 is more important than the next 20. (Imagine a character with 40 accuracy and examine why). That's not to say that more isn't always better, it's just that non-linear scaling means that each point has a different additive value.

 

 

Your numbers aren't wrong, but that's a convoluted way of interpreting them. Yes, at 90% chance to miss, a 5 defense bonus halves your chance to get hit, but that statistic isn't very meaningful. A 5 defense bonus shifts the accuracy rolls up by 5 points, wherever it's added.

 

If you compare it to damage, an increase of 10 damage per hit to a base of 10 damage is 100% increase, whereas an increase of 10 damage to a base of 20 damage is 50% increase. That doesn't make the 10 damage per hit any less valuable when added to the higher base damage weapon (assuming equal attack speeds), even though judging purely based on percentages would suggest that it's half as valuable. 10 more damage per hit is 10 more damage per hit, wherever it's added.

 

 

Yes, it's the same absolute change, but each point has different net worth. An extra 10 damage on top of someone doing only 10 damage is worth much more than an extra 10 damage on top of someone doing 100 damage. In my hypothetical path of the damned example, without debuffing the enemy at all, your attacks will connect 1/20 times; at that rate, your party is pretty much screwed and the enemy is pretty much untouchable. With a debuff of -20, your attacks will connect with that enemy 1/4 times. Now that fight is possible. With a further debuff of -20, you'll now connect ~1/2 times. It makes the fight a little easier and that -20 debuff is still useful, but the leap in fight feasibility is much less dramatic than the first -20 debuff.

 

If you still don't understand why these are non-linear returns, let me try some other explanations. It's the reason why some games like World of Warcraft have really weird, non-intuitive equations that map defense/armor to a % damage reduced, it's so that each additional point produces linear returns, i.e. each additional point in armor results in the same net damage decrease, no matter what your starting value is; some people incorrectly assume that these are diminishing returns, but this is wrong.

 

If you're still not getting it, here are two more examples:

 

a) In calculus terms it's whether dx/dy (or the first derivative of a function f() called f'()) for a given function of x is 0 (linear) or not (non-linear). If I use my Path of the Damned example and define a function f(x) = y where x is a defense rating and y is how many expected total attacks you can survive against an enemy, then if you've ever taken calculus you could hopefully see that f'(x) is > 0 (hint, at a certain value of x f(x) goes to infinite [because every attack now misses], whereas even the value of f(x - 1) would have been finite), which subsequently proves that defense has increasing returns.

 

b) Economics also has this core notion, it's all about the marginal utility of each additional point. If each point gives the same benefit as the point preceding it, then it's linear; if it's more (like in most PnP-style RPG systems) then its increasing, if it's less (some RPG systems do this) it's diminishing. Like, $1000 is worth a lot to a person who only makes $10,000/year, but $1000 is not worth very much to a person who makes $1billion/year. This is a case where the same absolute value of money has diminishing returns. You can say it's the same value, but it's not terribly meaningful to make that observation. And if you disagree, well, you'll have to first dive deep and understand why virtually every developed (and many developing) countries have progressive tax systems, they're all predicated on the notion that money had diminishing returns for any given individual, even though we're taking numbers that could be the same between different individuals (and why many economists think flat tax systems are sub-optimal sine flat tax assumes linear returns in utility for additional money).

 

EDIT: if you're not still clear on how defense provides increasing returns, I can provide a graph which hopefully will illustrate it a bit more clearly.

Edited April 22, 2015 by thelee

[Dignity]

While people are 100% correct that the way defense works in this game is it gets way, way more valuable the more you have, I believe that isn't really the issue with these talents in PoE.

 

The real problem is, the most common attacks that you would think these talents would help you against; at least according to the combat logs, actually attack the deflection stat not will, fortitude or reflex. Fighting those annoying Fungi and think that your massive Will defense is going to help you? Well too bad because their confusion spores only checks against deflection. If they hit you through this you're getting confused no matter what. Don't believe me? Check what the combat log says the next time you run into a pack.

 

I'm pretty sure the same applies to the crystal spiders but haven't really bothered to confirm if it does indeed just check vs deflection or if their petrify effect actually would check against fortitude as you'd expect it to. As for stuff like Fampyrs, well they seem to be able to spot your mage even from 2 screens away and are able to dominate him/her the nanosecond combat starts. If this particular attack actually checks against will, you'd need it on Aloth since the AI seems to be drawn to him like moths to the flame, even if you think you have them distracted with tanks, summons or what have you similar to how Shades and Shadows behave only far more annoying.

[thelee]

While people are 100% correct that the way defense works in this game is it gets way, way more valuable the more you have, I believe that isn't really the issue with these talents in PoE.

 

The real problem is, the most common attacks that you would think these talents would help you against; at least according to the combat logs, actually attack the deflection stat not will, fortitude or reflex. Fighting those annoying Fungi and think that your massive Will defense is going to help you? Well too bad because their confusion spores only checks against deflection. If they hit you through this you're getting confused no matter what. Don't believe me? Check what the combat log says the next time you run into a pack.

 

I'm pretty sure the same applies to the crystal spiders but haven't really bothered to confirm if it does indeed just check vs deflection or if their petrify effect actually would check against fortitude as you'd expect it to. As for stuff like Fampyrs, well they seem to be able to spot your mage even from 2 screens away and are able to dominate him/her the nanosecond combat starts. If this particular attack actually checks against will, you'd need it on Aloth since the AI seems to be drawn to him like moths to the flame, even if you think you have them distracted with tanks, summons or what have you similar to how Shades and Shadows behave only far more annoying.

 

Are you sure about this? They may use a deflection check to hit, but the proc itself may use a will save (I know fungi strike with an attack roll, i just assumed there was an additional will save or something, a lot like how a rogue's Blind Strike works).

 

The Fampyr stuff is super annoying though. I just now immediately use Durance to put the proper "Protection against" spell immediately on my wizard(s), even if there's no way the Fampyr could see them at the start of combat. At least it casts so quickly that I can generally get it off before the projectile makes its way to the wizard.

 

By the way, @the streaker, I ended up creating a graph anyway because I like graphs (click to enlarge):

 

The above graph shows your "effective total health" based on how many total attacks you can survive (because they are grazes, misses, etc) given any score of Defense. It assumes the attacker has a weapon that does an average of 10 damage and that the attacker has 50 accuracy, and that you have 100 endurance/health (you can adjust these assumptions in the spreadsheet to reflect any given in-game fight you're in). Note that the graph actually understates how extreme it is - at a Defense score just past what it can render, you have infinite effective health because every attack the attacker makes is a miss. This graph doesn't take into account damage reduction, but the underlying principle is the same. As you can see from the graph, though, each additional point in defense results in increasing returns (resulting in what could almost be termed a "hockey stick" graph).

 

You can take a look at the spreadsheet (and make a copy yourself to play with the numbers) here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ls3hndHjh2ghYcci7woRAEnhdh63w5uGEf9GZ684Db8/edit?usp=sharing

Edited April 22, 2015 by thelee

[Dignity]

Are you sure about this? They may use a deflection check to hit, but the proc itself may use a will save (I know fungi strike with an attack roll, i just assumed there was an additional will save or something, a lot like how a rogue's Blind Strike works).

 

Loaded up an earlier save to make 100% sure, but yes certain attacks do not actually behave as one would expect, especially given with the secondary effects appended onto them. The most egregious one being the confusing spores from the various stationary fungi in the game.

 

First for comparison's sake, here a screenshots of various monster attacks on the combat log:

 

 

Notice the difference between the 2. On the first the Dank Spore is attacking one of Eder's defenses, the roll was a hit and he was confused by the attack. Notice this rolled against a 66 defense rating which we'll get to in a moment.

 

On the second, the attack of the Troll against one of my custom party members was a single attack that did 2 separate rolls against the character. A 25 slash damage attack and a second roll vs Fortitude for the poison effect, which also hit resulting in a Weakened status effect. I should've moused over this as well, it was careless of me not to think ahead, but rest assured the for this single attack the initial strike was compared against deflection while the additional effect rolled vs fortitude as one would expect.

 

Now back to Eder and the 66 defense rating. Here is a screenshot of Eder's character sheet from the test in question:

 

 

If you'll notice his deflection is at 66 while his will is a mere 45 for this test. No where in the combat log does the 45 ever show up. There is no secondary roll that compares the confusion attack vs his will. Vs the Dank Spore a 0 or an infinite Will defense would result in the exact same outcome. THIS is why the talents the OP brought up feel useless, not because of the underlying math that your post beautifully illustrates btw, but because I'd surmise that 9 times out of 10, the defense you'd expect the attacks to be checked against are in fact not being checked.

 

Additionally let's go back to the troll example. While the poison effect does indeed get compared to Fortitude in this particular case, the fact of the matter is, if the initial strike, which compares against deflection missed in the first place, then the fortitude roll would have never come into question anyway. This just goes to show, especially given how rare caster type enemies are which use spells that directly attack defenses that aren't deflection, the actual best way to protect oneself versus status effects is to actually stack deflection rather than bother with the other defenses, especially since concentrating one just one defensive stat is far more likely to let you reach numbers where you have an actual significant impact on your characters survivability (with the non-linear returns on investment.)

 

So in conclusion, it doesn't matter what type of effect you're thinking of preventing, as long as the source is not a direct spell cast (Trolls, Spiders, Fungi, et al.) Deflection, and not the talents in question will give you far more bang for your buck. So while the talents might not be broken per se, what they are in fact are terrible noob traps.

[El Zoido]

This is interesting - deflection being checked in the troll encounter is intuitive and while it makes deflection more important, there are still effects that directly target fortitude, as well.

 

However, a confuse/charm attack that directly targets deflection and deflection only seems like either a nonsensical design decision (if deliberate) or an obvious bug.

Can someone confirm that it is the same for Fampyrs? I can't check it right now.

[Dignity]

Unfortunately I don't have a save with easy access to a live Endless Paths level 8 to check on Fampyrs specifically but the point still stands that for the vast majority of status effects in this game, the chosen delivery system compares versus the Deflection stat while the payload (status effect itself) may or may not check vs Reflex, Will or Fortitude. You can pretty much conclude that unless there is a casting sequence to the attack in question (which is why it's possible that the Fampyr spitball does actually check directly vs Will) the best way to defend yourself against being disabled is to just stack deflection. After all if the injection misses in the first place, the contents of the syringe are a moot point.

 

Consider the most common and status effects in the game: Crystal Eater paralysis (probably the single most dangerous disable in the game), Fungus Confusion, various Knockdown effects, and so on. The overwhelming majority of them are delivered via some sort of strike (usually melee) that checks against deflection, that's just a fact. What the developers original intent was, we can largely put aside insofar as the OP's original question. These talents aren't broken per se, they are just flat out terrible in the present and you'll find that you'll be safer from disabling effects by simply concentrating on stacking deflection.

 

Personally I too find this as quite weird design, it severely devalues the other 3 defensive stats, since while there are attacks which are directly checked against them (in other words they don't first have to beat your deflection) they are a minority of what you'll be facing in the game. Most of them in fact can be worked around with Damage Reduction anyway since they typically are direct endurance attacks with no disables attached to them (think the freeze lances that Shades cast.)

 

To reiterate I'm not here to say that the current system is intuitive or argue its virtues or downsides, I'm just giving the reason why these talents don't seem to have a discernable impact to the people like the OP.

 

TLDR: these talents are working as advertised however they are currently trash tier. Spend your talent points elsewhere. If you're concerned about protecting yourself from status effects you're better off simply stacking deflection.

[El Zoido]

I checked it, seems the Fampyr Charm is indeed checked against deflection, not will...

[Khalid the bear]

vithrack dominate- targets will
Vithrack aditional effect on hit(paralyze)-fort

Vithrack(boss only?) aoe stun-will             
adragan petrify- Fort

adragan dominate-will

Swam Spore Dominate-deflection

Dank Spore Confusion-deflection

Whil o whisp additional effect confusion-will
Fampyr Charm-Deflection

so there are (only) two types of enemies that cc target deflection

BUT

Menta lFortress:

  + 10 defense against Charmed
+ 10 defense against Confused
+ 10 defense against Dominated
+ 10 defense against Frightened
+ 10 defense against Terrified

Novere it mentiones it applys only on will

[Dignity]

Nice list. however you might have noticed that it comprises of 6 creatures with only 3 of them that actually don't target deflection, To be fair there are others too such as random hostile Monk NPCs with their stunning blows (direct attack vs Fortitude). So even trying to disprove what's been said, you only further emphasize the "problem."

 

In addition to this there are a myriad of CC effects that are first delivered via an attack that inititally compares against deflection with a tack on secondary effect that compares against a different stat (one such example being the incredibly dangerous crystal eaters). Avoid the initial hit, and guess what, having a 0 fort, will, ref won't hurt you anyway (extreme example but shows the point).

 

The point still stands however. The overwhelming majority of CC effects are either directly or indirectly countered by simply stacking deflection. Simply pointing out few exceptions to the rule doesn't magically turn these junk talents into suddenly useful ones, nor does it suddenly make heavily investing into the 3 non-defleciton defenses suddenly worthwhile. I wish this weren't the case, but as things currently stand, Obsidian has overemphasized Deflection to the detriment of the other defensive stats.

 

Note too that deflection is the primary defense when it comes to protecting you from dropping to 0 endurance from direct damage attacks, and the few cases where direct damage is directed against your other defenses smart use of DR is enough to carry the day. (Such as the Shade example I pointed out before).

Edited April 24, 2015 by Dignity

[Khalid the bear]

 

Swam Spore Dominate-deflection

Dank Spore Confusion-deflection

so there are (only) two types of enemies that cc target deflection

 

BUT

 

Menta lFortress:

  + 10 defense against Charmed

+ 10 defense against Confused

+ 10 defense against Dominated

+ 10 defense against Frightened

+ 10 defense against Terrified

Novere it mentiones it applys only on will

 

 

Swam Spore Dominate-deflection

Dank Spore Confusion-deflection

 

so there are (only) two types of enemies that cc target deflection

 

BUT

 

Menta lFortress:

  + 10 defense against Charmed

+ 10 defense against Confused

+ 10 defense against Dominated

+ 10 defense against Frightened

+ 10 defense against Terrified

Novere it mentiones it applys only on will

 

Spores are two subtypes of same type of ennemy, so 3 vs 2

 

and again Mental Fortress should stack with deflection

[El Zoido]

I think the problem with those talents isn't that deflection is the most important defensive attribute, it's that their effect is relatively small at +10 considering that you have to invest a talent.

 

But it's interesting to note that they seemingly directly add a bonus when defending against the effect, not just the Will roll.

That should help if the attack targets deflection, too.

That some of the attacks targt deflection directly, rather than the expected Will is still strange, imo, considering one would intuitively increase will rather than deflection against chamr/dominate/confuse attacks.

[Dignity]

I think the problem with those talents isn't that deflection is the most important defensive attribute, it's that their effect is relatively small at +10 considering that you have to invest a talent.

 

But it's interesting to note that they seemingly directly add a bonus when defending against the effect, not just the Will roll.

That should help if the attack targets deflection, too.

That some of the attacks targt deflection directly, rather than the expected Will is still strange, imo, considering one would intuitively increase will rather than deflection against chamr/dominate/confuse attacks.

 

Right this is the primary issue the fact that Will defense "doesn't do what it says on the tin." So what tends to happen to unaware players is they spread out their defenses, try to up their will and use talents like mental fortress and items that increase will to shore up that defense only to have it completely ingnored anyway and wonder why the talents aren't helping.

 

Also Khalid I get the point, as I have said YES there are some enemies that don't target deflection, but the earliest enemies you run into (spores) and arguably the most annoying charmers you run into (Fampyrs due to their one track, mage hunting AI) both target deflection. So 2 of the 3 major charm users in the game target deflection. Yes Mental Fortress helps stack vs this but guess what so does superior defleciton (+5 def) AND helps vs 95+% of the attacks you face in the game. You can list mobs til you're blue in the face but to the general populace who weren't aware why their talents and gear weren't helping here's your reason plain as day. You want mental fortress to help? Stack it on top of deflection. And even so you get far more return on talents that stack generic deflection than conditional ones like these since they help vs nearly eveything, not a tiny list comprising of a handful of mobs.